D&D 5E Confession: I Sometimes Miss Vancian Casting

[The Human Target]

[*]In 4e ... All you needed to cast was one free hand and an implement.

Neither of those things are true.

 

[Tony Vargas]

A thought in passing:

While spellcasting has gotten easier with each edition in D&D, and spells have gotten more ubiquitous to the point that practically everybody in 5E is a spellcaster, it must be admitted that the magic system is one of D&D's big draws and it makes some sense to leverage it.

The magic system has received a lot of criticism, and often perplexes new players, but, even so, I'll agree that it makes sense to leverage it. Just look at 5e: one list of spells serves 13 classes and over 30 sub-classes, letting them share many of the exact same abilities, and thus saving a lot of design work.

You can still have too much of a good thing of course, and 5E may have crossed that line. Maybe 5E makes spellcasting too cheap, easy, and ubiquitous.

Depends on the campaign. It's barely enough magic for a Harry Potter campaign or one inspired by the Myth Adventures dimension of Perv, for instance. Tolkien or 'low fantasy,' or pulp S&S, sure, it's too much. In terms of game balance, better squeeze in all 6-8 encounters between long rests. Wherever you peg magic level in the game, the DM's going to have to adapt it to his campaign, or adapt his campaign to it. It'd take really robust balance to avoid that.

Some things aren't properly appreciated when you don't pay a price--I could certainly stand to see AD&D rules on spell disruption brought back into play.

You could re-introduce a lot of things like that without rendering casters non-viable. It might lessen their appeal for more casual players, but you just wouldn't do it if you had such players interested in playing casters - heck, you'd probably try to further simplify casting.

Neither of those things are true.

Technically you didn't need an implement (I thought someone might bring that up), but without the enhancement bonus you weren't going to do well out of the higher levels if you did. You needed the free hand, though, you couldn't cast tied-up, for instance. No Still Spell meta-magic or anything.

I guess I mean, "Whichever spell of a given level is optimal, will be spammed repeatedly."

That's a danger of the neo-Vancian system most 5e casters use, yes.

In the case of my party's wizard, he has a tendency to counterspell or dispel any serious magical effect -- which makes the game kind of boring. It means the first few rounds of a mage duel are spent just burning off each other's spell slots with counterspell to no real effect. Then the warriors wade in and finish the poor NPCs off.

I see your point, but that actually sounds kinda genre-faithful, to me. Maybe in a movie it'd be a little more dramatic - the offensive spell would get to manifest in a menacing way before being countered.

Just imagine it like the wizard duel in one of the Conan flicks. Two wizards staring at each other with really intense expressions, groaning, until eventually one of them slumps in defeat and his side falls back.

One example. That one also reminded me of old-school psionic combat.

 

[ExploderWizard]

As the DM, I really hate that the party wizard can't run out of counterspell and dispel magic.

Why not. Do you have a house rule that grants unlimited spell slots? When they are spent then they are spent.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

I guess I mean, "Whichever spell of a given level is optimal, will be spammed repeatedly."

In the case of my party's wizard, he has a tendency to counterspell or dispel any serious magical effect -- which makes the game kind of boring. It means the first few rounds of a mage duel are spent just burning off each other's spell slots with counterspell to no real effect. Then the warriors wade in and finish the poor NPCs off.

I would love for the wizard to say, "Well I might want to save my one counterspell for later so I'll just let him conjure those animals... at least they will be nicely clumped for this fireball!"

DMs can sometimes have a skewed perspective on what is boring. Would your players find it less boring to be limited this way, or would it just make the game more interesting for you to run?

BTW, Greater Invisibility counters Counterspell, since Counterspell only works on creatures you can see within 60'. Likewise, simple movement also counters Counterspell under many circumstances. After you Counterspell the first Fireball from 15' away, the enemy warlock sprints to the back of the chapel (45') and orders his guards to block the PCs from getting closer. Oh, no, quick, stop him, or else next round he will just move to 75' (just outside the chapel door) and cast Fireball again! Monk to the rescue!

 

[HardcoreDandDGirl]

I think that the current rules are great for clerics, but I would love to go back to the old way for wizards

 

[The Human Target]

Technically you didn't need an implement (I thought someone might bring that up), but without the enhancement bonus you weren't going to do well out of the higher levels if you did. You needed the free hand, though, you couldn't cast tied-up, for instance. No Still Spell meta-magic or anything.

We actually thought spellcasters needed their implements to cast at all in the beginning of 4e.

Yeah the DM can (per explicit rule) decide that being incapacitated in some way prevents the use of abilities.

You don't need a free hand though, in the sense of other editions anyway. A wizard can have a longsword in each hand and still cast burning hands.

 

[Tony Vargas]

You don't need a free hand though, in the sense of other editions anyway. A wizard can have a longsword in each hand and still cast burning hands.

Sure, if the longsword is his implement (WotST or Eladrin Sword Wizardry - throw in Dual Implement Spellcaster to do so /better/ than with just one). You don't need a free hand and an implement in the other, but a hand free to use the implement. Didn't think that needed to be said.

 

[lowkey13]

*Deleted by user*

 

[Zak S]

Lets take a look at the numbers:

A fireball cast in its normal slot does an average of 28 damage. 14 if the save is made. Yes the spell can affect multiple targets. A 5th level caster can do this 2 times per day.

A fighter with sword & board, an 18 STR, and dueling style attacks twice per round doing an average of 10.5 per attack. Attacking twice per round thats 21 damage per round all day every day. If the fighter chooses to action surge (cast fireball) then that jumps up to 42 damage for the round. The fighter regains his slot after a short rest also, so he/she can do this 3 times on an average day assuming 2 short rests.

The wizard does have the potential to out damage the fighter but not consistently by any means.

Even assuming the Fighter has 18 STR, the wizard is doing 28 or 14 to _every foe in the area_. So in one fight the wizard could do more damage than the fighter does all day.

And, of course, after level five (75% of the levels in the game), the wizard is doing more and more damage and more damage and the fighter isn't. At level 10? At 15? Have you played a 5e game at that level? Wizards are still quadratic, even in 5e.

Plus that's _just damage_ , never mind all the other things the wizard can do.

The problem can be hacked away (5e is hella hackable and that's nice) but wizards are crazy powerful RAW.

 

[The Human Target]

But wouldn't that melt the hilts of the swords?

How do you think they make two-bladed swords?